All Islanders Advance to Second Round of ITA Texas Regionals

WACO, Texas – The Texas A&M - Corpus Christi men's tennis team sent freshman Kevin Bettendroffer and sophomores Javier Pujol and Ricardo Mayagoitia to compete in the USTA/ITA Texas Regional Championships in Waco, Texas. The largest Division I tournament in the state of Texas started today and continues through Tuesday, Oct. 22 on the campus of Baylor University. All three Islanders advanced to the round of 64 in singles play and the duo of Bettendroffer and Mayagoitia advanced to the round of 32 in doubles action. The Islanders defeated players from TCU, Texas Tech and Rice to advance to the second round of competition.

"I thought we competed very very hard today as a team," Director of Tennis Steve Moore said. "In my opinion, this is one of the toughest tournaments in the United States and Texas is the toughest regional. I was especially impressed with Ricardo in both singles and doubles. I feel like Javier and Kevin are improving tremendously. I think the second round showed us that we have a lot of work to do which is an important message to get at the beginning of the year."

Bettendroffer cruised to a 6-4, 6-0 win against Guiherme Gesser of Abilene Christian before dropping a 6-2, 6-3 loss to No. 3 seed Shane Vinsant of Texas A&M in the round of 64.

Pujol also picked up a straight-set victory with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Rice's Leif Berger. In the round of 64, Pujol fell short 6-1, 6-1 to No. 9 seed Arnau Dachs of TCU.

Mayagoitia put together an impressive first-round victory in singles play against Carlos DiLaura of Texas Tech. The sophomore fell behind early 4-1 in the first set, but bounced back to even the set at 5-5 before winning two straight games to win 7-5. In the second set, the sophomore fell behind 5-1 before rallying back to garner a 6-5 lead and win the tiebreaker 7-3. In the round of 64, Mayagoitia dropped a 7-6 (2), 6-4 loss to Facundo Lugones of TCU.

Bettendroffer and Mayagoitia teamed up in doubles play to start the day. The duo topped Andres Alfonzo and Blake Wiiggins of TCU 8-2 to advance to the round of 32. In the second match of the day, the Islander pair fell 8-3 to Rice's duo of Tommy Bennett and Adam Gustafsson.

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